Oysterband

Komedia, Brighton
Tue 4 Dec

Oysterband on their annual visit to the Komedia; the usual mix of punchy folk-rock, same songs as last year but just as enjoyable - or maybe it's just that we know them better?

And this time with a right old Hullabaloo (notice one of my pics on their web-site . . . ). More Hullabaloo - at the Old Market, Hove, from a couple of years ago.

Mahala Rai Banda

Komedia, Brighton
Sun 25 Nov

A big, brassy, hoot! Rough at the edges, and fun from start to finish, which only came after they got down and did a 15-minute walkabout. See the gig photos on Flickr, and listen to a few tracks on their MySpace.

Blowzabella @ Lewes

Sat 17 Nov
Lewes Corn Exchange
A cracking gig at the Corn Exchange (ie, Town Hall), a few seats round the sides but otherwise played for dancing, which is as it should be - it is dance music, after all. The poor acoustics towards the back of the hall meant that some dancers didn't get such a good deal. As is often the case, the closer, the better, as you can see from the Ladies in Black! Here's some Flickr pix, and their web-site and you can listen on their MySpace, and also buy their CD Octomento and their book of New Tunes for Dancing from Jo Freya.

Bellowhead @ Lewes

Town Hall, Lewes
Sat 19 Apr

Big band, big sound. Very intricate and very together, and musically stunning. English traditional music has never sounded like this. There's 11 of them, playing most instruments you can think of, and despite the prominence of the brass section in the line-up (trumpet, trombone, reeds and sousaphone) they produce a wide range of colour and texture and some subtle rhythmic effects, and rarely drown out the fiddles. And no-one could subdue Jon Boden's singing, so don't even think of trying.

We missed John Spiers and Giles Lewin, whose places were taken by Saul Rose and the "annoyingly youthful" Sam (?), who even seemed to be playing Giles' pipes; you couldn't see the joins, which is as it should be. There's a Bellowhead @ Lewes picture-set from row B on Flickr.

If you don't know them, try their web-site and their MySpace, which has a few tracks to listen to; there's also a whole slew of videos on YouTube that should entice you to go out and buy their record - quick, before the next one comes out in the Autumn; there'll also be a live DVD, "coming soon".

The acoustics at Lewes Town Hall are not all that good - it was fine down the front, but the high domed roof seems to suck out a lot of the sound the further back you get. We noticed the same thing happening at the Blowzabella gig in the smaller hall in November. I don't know what the boppers at the back were able to make of it, I'm just glad we got down the front, even if it did mean sitting down . . .

They're touring for a few weeks, then they're doing a load of festivals this summer, so you could treat yourself to an open-air blast as well.

Meanwhile 50 yards away at the Lewes Arms club, Martin Carthy was doing an all-day workshop followed by an evening gig. As Jon Boden put it, "Lewes must be the town with the highest concentration of folk clubs per square capita . . . "

Salamanca quiz

How are these two photos connected?

No prizes, but if you can work out the answer you could save yourself €70 next time you're in Salamanca.

SIBE Conference

From SIBE 08

SIBE Conference, Thu 6-Sun 9 Mar
Salamanca

A few snaps from the SIBE Conference. And the 'official' SIBE photoset - although I don't seem to feature on any of them. I was there, honest.

Salamanca

Thu 6 - Sun 9 Mar
Salamanca

Here's a brief album of snaps from the city, including the Plaza Mayor, the Roman bridge, the University, and statues of Lazarillo de Tormes and Fray Luis de León. Buena suerte if you can spot the frog on the facade of the University building.

Javier Paxariño at the Savor

Fri 7 Mar
Savor, Salamanca

Javier Paxariño, with guests Majid Javadi (Iran) and Nantha Kumar (India), plays Autumn Leaves with Pedro Cañada and students from the Conservatorio Superior de Música, Salamanca, in a late session at the Savor club during the SIBE Conference. Here's a slideshow with a recording from the gig:



And here's an album with the same photos in much better quality (but no music!). I may add a longer version of the Autumn Leaves recording, though I didn't get it from the start.

And one from 2006, of Javier at the Café Central in Madrid playing more wind instruments than you knew existed, with an all-star band including Carlos Beceiro on various strings, and Faín Dueñas and Jaime Medina on percussion.

Mayalde

Sat 8 Mar
Conservatorio Superior de Música, Salamanca

Kitchen percussion taken to the limit - every conceivable household implement struck, stroked, spun, shaken, swung, tinkled, blown, pinged, plucked. They did cheat a couple of times and played an accordeon. All making the important point that that's what people used to do when they didn't have instruments.

Here's a slideshow from the concert with music clips from their latest CD (downloaded from their web-site):



- and an album of the same photos (much better quality images, but no music).

La identidad (2)

Since Safari doesn't seem to display text along with the presentation (it's fine in Firefox), I'm copying the text from 'La identidad (3)' below:
----------------------------------
And here it is in all its glory, via:

Keynote (Mac) > Powerpoint > iSpring (Windows) > slideboom.com > Blogger

The iSpring > slideboom combination is the only route I have come across that can post a Powerpoint file online with all embedded audio and video clips playing 'on click' - for free. The visual quality and the functionality are far superior to the video version I posted to TeacherTube (see earlier post). And I've somehow managed to embed it here - I hope I'll be able to remember how!

Many, many issues at each stage of the process, I'll outline some of the solutions I found in a later post. On the way I have had to update to Parallels 3 (fortunately via a free offer), buy MS Office 2007 (£7.50 via institutional licence), install iSpring Free (free) and sign up to slideboom.com (free).
--------------------------------

La Identidad (3)

And here it is in all its glory, via:

Keynote (Mac) > Powerpoint > iSpring (Windows) > slideboom.com > Blogger

The iSpring > slideboom combination is the only route I have come across that can post a Powerpoint file online with all embedded audio and video clips playing 'on click' - for free. The visual quality and the functionality are far superior to the video version I posted to TeacherTube. And I've somehow managed to embed it here - I hope I'll be able to remember how!

Many, many issues at each stage of the process, I'll outline some of the solutions I found in a later post. On the way I have had to update to Parallels 3 (fortunately via a free offer), buy MS Office 2007 (£7.50 via institutional licence), install iSpring Free (free) and sign up to slideboom.com (free).